Ethereum Developers Discuss Pectra Upgrade and Client Diversity at Consensus Call #136

On June 27, 2024, Ethereum developers convened over Zoom for the All Core Developers Consensus (ACDC) call #136. These bi-weekly meetings focus on discussing and coordinating changes to Ethereum's consensus layer (CL), also known as the Beacon Chain. This session was chaired by Ethereum Foundation (EF) Researcher Alex Stokes, according to Galaxy.com.

Key Discussions

Developers delved into new research on client diversity data collection and multi-client block validation. They also shared updates on the Pectra upgrade, revealing that Pectra Devnet 1 is nearing readiness, pending execution layer (EL) client readiness. Teku developer Mikhail Kalinin updated the community on EIP 6110 specifications, while PeerDAS Devnet 1 is live with three different CL client implementations.

New Research

Jorge Arce-Garro from Nethermind presented research on improving client diversity data reporting by node operators. Funded by an EF grant, the research explores three methods to facilitate client type communication by validator node operators, evaluating each approach's complexity, security, and anonymity protection. Feedback on the research is welcomed on Ethresearch.

Geth developer Péter Szilágyi updated on EL cross-validation, an idea he first proposed in November 2023. This aims to enhance Ethereum's resilience against catastrophic bugs by enabling block verification with multiple clients. While the implementation across all clients won't require a hard fork, it necessitates significant changes to the Engine API. Szilágyi noted a 20% performance hit to block import due to these changes but emphasized the need for further testing and benchmarking.

Pectra Upgrade Progress

EF DevOps Engineer Parithosh Jayanthi reported that his team is waiting on EL client teams to launch Pectra Devnet 1. Kalinin has finalized changes to EIP 6110, which introduces a queuing mechanism for processing new validator deposit requests from the EL on the CL, and is seeking developer feedback.

PeerDAS development is progressing, with the second devnet live and undergoing stress testing. Some issues have been identified and are being addressed by client teams. Stokes highlighted ongoing questions regarding PeerDAS implementation, particularly around blob gas limit and base fee calculation, with multiple proposals under consideration.

Nimbus developer Etan Kissling shared updates on EIP 7688 and EIP 6493, related to upgrading Ethereum’s data serialization methods. While these EIPs are not yet included in the Pectra upgrade, certain developers are pushing for their inclusion. Kissling aims to include EIP 7688 in Pectra Devnet 2, but this has raised concerns among client teams and the EF DevOps team. Developers agreed to reassess the readiness of EIP 7688 at a later date.

Kissling also noted progress on EIP 6493, with the EthereumJS EL client having a working implementation and a client demo in development.